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3:45 a.m., Thursday, September 27, 2001

It's nearly 4 a.m., and I haven't slept. Not that I haven't tried -- I am exhausted -- but it just seems impossible tonight.

Outside, heavy equipment vehicles rumble constantly as they pass, interrupted by the occasional wailing siren. Through the window glows the white light that is the specter of death. Worst, I am unable to breathe, coughing regularly, trying to escape the acrid air -- shutting vents and turning off fans, despite the stuffiness inside the apartment. I realize that in other places, on this cool early-autumn night, people are sleeping peacefully with their windows open, welcoming the fresh, crisp air.

I have realized that depictions in the media now focus on everything but the limited experience of residents in this area. News reports replay scenes of the destruction; feature stories highlight the forward movement of the city. What is lacking is the reality of living between those two worlds.

Above Canal Street, business has resumed to as close to normal as New York will be for quite a while. But south of Canal Street, a different city exists. Sirens, which used to blend into the confusion, now echo through the abandoned streets, reminding residents of the hundreds of workers who toil endlessly to recover property and its dead owners. Only pedestrian traffic is permitted; vehicles are carefully screened at Canal. The nightclubs, restaurants, and even many of the mainstream daylight-hours businesses remain closed. And while the number of pedestrians increases daily, there is something different about those who come: fewer locals, more curious onlookers pressing masks over their faces as they pursue their goal of peeking at the gruesome ruins.

I wonder sometimes if, when tourists view the ruins, they think about the thousands of mangled humans and the hundreds who tried to save them, or if they just see the massive pile of rubble.

The media and the public, whom I will define as anyone not a resident of TriBeCa, Battery City, or the Financial District, do not possess an awareness of what life is like here. Relatives call to tell us how happy they are that things are "back to normal," when still, in this limited area, the lower tip of Manhattan island, normal remains months or years away -- if ever. It's like living in The Twilight Zone, that place between reality and imagination, the place that makes one wonder which is true. We can't fault others for their utter lack of comprehension; we can barely comprehend the horrors ourselves.

It's nearly 4:30 now, and the trucks continue to rumble outside. A helicopter flies overhead. And throughout the rest of the city and the country, people sleep peacefully.